PROMT
- Length Criteria
- General Content Criteria
- Articles selected
- Articles not selected
- Newspaper Content Criteria
- National and internationals-scope newspapers
- Local and regional business newspapers and journals
- Full-Text Source Content Criteria
- Full-text newsletters
- Newswires
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The length criteria for article selection for PROMT depends on whether the full text of the article is available. In records with full text, the minimum article length for selection is approximately 375 to 400 characters (typically 3 sentences). When the full text is not available, then the article is abstracted, and therefore the article must be sufficiently long to abstract. The minimum article length for abstracted articles is 1,000 characters (approximately 1/2 to 1 column in length).
Articles are selected if they contain information on (1) a company, industry, product, service, or applied technology, and (2) explain the action in enough detail to create an index. Selection is additionally restricted to news with some lasting nature. From some publications only a minority of the articles fit the criteria and are selected.
Articles and news items about the following types of activities are selected:
- Acquisitions, mergers and new company formations (for more information, see below)
- Advertising or marketing trends and strategies
- Asset sales and divestitures
- Bankruptcy and reorganization
- Capital expenditures
- Changes in capacity to manufacture products or offer services
- Company name changes
- Company strategies, goals and profiles
- Contracts to produce, supply, or build something, with a minimum amount of $10 million (for more information, see below)
- Disasters, if significant economic information is provided
- Economic, interest rate, currency, commodities, or futures information or forecasts that are long-range (at least one year)
- Environmental impacts
- Executive changes and profiles (top-level only, such as CEO, chairman, president), only if substantial company or industry information is included
- Financial results, earnings, sales, revenues, or forecasts (full-year data) (for more information, see below)
- Financial management or analysis
- Forecasts, trends, predictions, outlooks (full-year data)
- Foreign trade (full-year data)
- Government regulation or Congressional actions affecting a company or industry (if finalized; not interim updates)
- Initial public offerings of company stock
- Interaction with the government or community
- International economic relations that affect specific industries
- Joint ventures
- Labor use (full-year data)
- Labor relations (only major contracts or strikes, announcements and conclusions) (for more information, see below)
- Law suits (filing of suit, major developments in a case, decisions)
- Licensing and sales agreements, including ones with professional sports teams
- Market share (full-year data or information without a time frame)
- Marketing procedures and strategies, including advertising and pricing
- New or discontinued technologies or processes
- Patents and copyrights
- Personnel information, such as layoff and hiring data or company strategies
- Plant and facility construction, acquisitions, expansions, long-term shutdowns, or closures
- Price changes and trends that have a major impact on an industry or company
- Privatization of a specific industry or company
- Product design and development trends in an industry
- Product development, introduction, discontinuation, standards and quality
- Production and service capacities (industry-wide changes)
- Production data, including agricultural harvests (full-year data)
- Production techniques and management
- Relocation of company headquarters
- Research & Development plans and expenditures
- Resource use
- Sales, consumption, or demand for a product or service (full-year data)
- Services development, introduction, discontinuation, standards and quality
- Shipments (full-year data)
- Stock offerings
The following types of articles and news items are not selected:
- Addresses or phone numbers of companies, government agencies or nonprofit organizations that are not relocations
- Awards announcements
- Corrections to a previously printed article, unless the correction contains enough information to make it valuable as a stand-alone record
- Economic, interest rate, currency, commodities, or futures information, that are short term (less than one year)
- Editorials
- Extended captions for a page of photos
- Financial results that are interim (less than annual) (for more information, see below)
- "How to" articles
- Interviews with company executives, unless the interview is a discussion of company- or industry-wide importance
- Letters to the editor
- News briefs, where a single article consists of multiple-subject briefs or where the news is likely to be covered in more depth elsewhere (for more information, see below)
- Opinion or comment articles and columns
- Political information with no significant effect on a specific industry
- Previews of upcoming shows, meetings or exhibits or articles on past ones that do not contain significant industry information
- Price changes, if no other company or industry information is provided
- Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and Requests for Quotes (RFQs)
- Reader circle cards or similarly labeled articles that are less than a half-page long and do not discuss new products
- Short personnel items that contain no additional company information
- Stock market analysis, trends, and forecasts
- Wire service articles (Associated Press, Bloomberg News Service, Reuters, UPI, etc.), except in Wall Street Journal Europe and Wall Street Journal Asia, where Dow Jones wire service articles may be selected
Additional selection guidelines
Acquisitions and Mergers: Articles are selected that contain new announcements of an acquisition/merger, changed bids (e.g. prices, terms, new bidders), anti-takeover actions such as "poison pill" plans, permanent or temporary termination of an acquisition/merger, or announcements that an acquisition/merger is completed. Insignificant daily updates on the status of an acquisition/merger are not selected.
Contracts: Generally, articles about contracts involving less than $10 million are not selected. Exceptions may be made if the contract is for a prototype of a product that will have a major impact on an industry or if the initial contract is small but could lead to a more lucrative contract. The minimum contract amount selected is $1 million.
Interim Financial Results: Quarterly, six-month, and nine-month financial data are not selected, unless (1) the change is unusually significant (such as 75% or more change from the financial period being given as a comparison), (2) a major trend in an industry is discussed, or (3) the results show a change from a long period of profit to a loss or vice versa. Interim financial results can also be selected if the article includes a new announcement of other company-related news, such as the hiring or laying off of employees or opening or closing of factories due to the financial results, or other news that falls under the general selection policies.
Labor Relations and Union Contracts: Only the most important milestones of union contracts and negotiations of major concern to an industry are selected, as well as articles that announce a major strike or its conclusion. Articles announcing the shutdown of production facilities due to strikes may be selected if the discussion covers the projected long-term impact on production or labor use. Articles covering the interim status of labor strikes and negotiations or articles that primarily discuss how workers are coping with the strike are not selected.
News Briefs: News briefs are relatively short news articles that are collected into sections or columns and may share a heading, such as 'News Briefs' or 'Top of the News.' To be selected, a news brief must
- appear as a separate article in the original source (such as by being separated by other news briefs by a blank line, and not merely by ellipses or bullet points within the same paragraph);
- be at least three sentences long (1,000 characters in abstracted sources); and
- contain news that is not likely to have been covered in more depth elsewhere. Thus, news briefs are not selected if they are (1) from sources published monthly or less frequently, (2) outside of the scope of the source's coverage, or (3) U.S. news from sources published outside of the U.S.
Tables: Most tables found in PROMT journals are part of an article and are not selected separately. To be selected for PROMT, the table has to meet the following requirements: (1) be stand-alone (not attached to an article), (2) give a region or country, (3) give time frames for the data, and (4) be at least one-quarter of a page in size. Both company- and industry-oriented information is acceptable, as long as it meets PROMT’s general selection policies.
Internet and World Wide Web topics: Articles that have company- or industry-related news/information (including forecasts, trends, overviews), product and service information (including development, introduction, revisions), market information (including market share and rankings, overviews, forecasts, trends), or marketing/advertising strategies and research are selected. Articles that only contain discussions of the Internet/Web itself, how to access/use the Internet/Web, or short announcements of a company's or organization's Web site, even if it is new, are not selected.
Scientific and technical articles and publications: Articles on current or future commercial applications or marketing plans for the procedures or products being discussed are selected. Even a brief mention of a probable future commercial use at the beginning or end of the article is sufficient.
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Article selection policies for newspapers follow general PROMT selection criteria, and therefore only business-related articles are selected. Furthermore, newspaper article selection aims at avoiding excessive duplication of news between different sources. Therefore, articles on regional, national, and international news are selected differently, depending on the newspaper's focus.
National and international-scope newspapers
New York Times
Articles are selected covering news about North American industries or companies headquartered in or doing business in North America. Articles about North American companies doing business overseas or foreign companies doing business in North America are selected, but articles about foreign companies doing business overseas are not selected.Los Angeles Times
Articles are selected covering news of local (Los Angeles area) or national (U.S.) companies or industries. Articles about U.S. companies doing business overseas or foreign companies doing business in the U.S. are selected, but articles about foreign companies doing business overseas are not selected. An exception is the newspaper's spotlight on Asian business news that appears approximately once a week and may be considered for selection.Globe and Mail and Financial Post
Articles are selected covering news about companies and industries headquartered in or doing business in all provinces and regions of Canada. Selected articles may have a local affiliation or importance and can contain nationally (Canada) focused industry.Wall Street Journal (NJ)
Only articles dealing with non-European and non-Asian activities (i.e., the US, Canada, Central and South America, etc.) are selected.Wall Street Journal Europe
Only articles dealing with European activities are selected.Wall Street Journal Asia
Only articles dealing with Asian activities are selected.Barron's
Only company or industry profiles are selected. Generally, two to four articles are selected from each issue of Barron's.Local and regional business newspapers and journals
Article selection policy is more restrictive for local and regional business newspapers and journals. Only locally written articles with substantive information on a subject which has some connection to the region or area are selected. Articles about any size of company may be selected, because the local paper may be the only source for information about the company.
Articles that fall under general PROMT selection criteria above are selected. In addition, articles on the following information are selected:
- Major news that will impact business in the region
- Contracts of any dollar amount
- Economic information (local, regional or state)
- Full-year data, such as an 'economic outlook.' Interim period information may be selected if the potential for a large impact on future yearly data is described.
- General market information
- Articles with a local or regional focus, or articles on how a local business has significant involvement in the national industry. For example, an article in the San Jose Mercury News about the U.S. computer industry may be selected.
- Real estate development and transactions, including:
- Major retail development, such as regional shopping malls and hotels
- Major industrial parks and office complexes, if another corporate entity (such as a tenant) is involved
- Information on major real estate firms, such as yearly financial data and corporate-level changes
- Change in ownership of large, nationally known landmark-type buildings
- Small, regional business/company profiles, if there is potential for growth or expansion
- Sports arenas, amusement parks, performing arts centers, hospitals, ports, if details are given on the opening, major renovation or moving of a facility, or if information is given on how the facility affects the local economy
- Tables ranking regional companies by number of employees, financial assets, contracts, or other significant information, with at least five companies listed
The following types of articles and news items are not selected:
- Construction-related articles about smaller, routine types of developments. This includes condos and other housing, business parks, office buildings and highway construction. Articles about major construction companies, such as Morrison-Knudsen, may be selected because these firms usually work on larger, more important projects and the article may discuss a contract.
- Editorials
- Local political action, chamber of commerce activities, non-profit organizations
- News briefs (usually in 'Business Roundup'-type sections)
- Real estate or pension fund firms, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and similar types of companies buying or selling buildings or parcels of land as part of their normal flow of business, when no change in capacity is involved
- Syndicated columns
- Wire service articles (Associated Press, Canadian Press, Dow Jones, Reuters, UPI, etc.), even if an author’s name is also listed
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Full-text publications include certain trade journals, newsletters, and newswires. In addition to having shorter length criteria, publications with full-text availability also have slightly more liberal selection policies with respect to content. Articles from full-text publications are selected according to general PROMT policies, and, in addition, articles with the following information are also selected:
- Comment or opinion columns that also contain information that fits selection policies
- Federal government actions, whether completed or not, that impact a company or industry
- Local, state or regional government policies or actions that impact a company or industry
Full-text newsletters,a subset of the full-text publications, have an even more liberal selection policy, whereby the following types of articles are also selected:
- Information on capacity changes, expansions, contracts, services, etc., involving schools, hospitals, museums and other nonprofit organizations
- Information on small local businesses (e.g., restaurants, stores, beauty salons)
For both Business Wire and PR Newswire, only company and product news releases are selected. Industry-related news releases are not selected. For example, a release from the National Automobile Dealers Association that says 14 million cars were purchased in 1995 would not be selected, whereas a release from Chrysler that gives the company's annual car sales would be selected.
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